August 28, 2003
Corporate concepts that will never make it...
Posted by Jess in
Geek Humor
Seems how recreational (well, that’s a bad choice of words. Not for profit?) web ideas always turn into the productive/corproate ones.. email, IM, blogging, etc.
It’s like corporations and the world waits to evaluate the usefulness of a certain concept, and then puts it to use in a business sense.
Here's some ideas I had that probably won’t make it:
Quake arenas for corporate meetings: Employees must capture the flag to speak (typing to chat). You have to EARN your right to speak, dammit!
Workstation Napster: Need a Corporate Policy document from HR? No time to email it? Steal it! Want to find out how many users actually kept a copy of their Employee Handbook? Search and see how many results come up. No need for expensive backups anymore, rest easy knowing there are at least 300 other copies of your document lying around somewhere.
Chain Letter Newsletters: Tired of your employees not reading your monthly newsletters? Leave a message at the bottom of it that if they don’t forward it to ten more employees in the next 30 minutes, something terrible will happen to them on the way to the parking lot.
BossMoodBug: This small program stays in your system tray and constantly updates you with the current mood that your boss is currently in. Alerts occur during periods of high tempers. The latest version comes with an option that lets you enter your latitude and longitude and chooses the boss physically closest to you, for the most accurate conditions.
Help-A-Dying-Corporation: This program ties in with the company bank account. Whenever it drops below a certain level, an auto-email is sent out to everyone in the company. The email contains a story about a randomized child’s name needing an operation for a randomized medical emergency. It asks each person to donate $5. The final stage of the email is to automatically contact Mailboxes, Etc. to set up a mailbox and includes the address in the email. The program will continue to send out the email with different randomized names until the bank account is back up to its starting level. The “economy” version asks the person to donate $10.
Project eBay: Tired of your employees not happy with the projects they are given, or not stepping up to take projects? Auction them off! Employees will be addicted to refreshing the screen every two seconds to watch the latest projects go “up for auction” and see what tasks they’ve “won”. Bidding starts at getting to leave 15 minutes early on Friday.
August 27, 2003
SAT = Stupid Annoying Tests
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
Apparently SAT scores are up. Higher than they’ve been in 20 years, actually. I don’t really know what that means.
I’ve always been quiet in the whole concept of how accurate certificate testing programs are, almost afraid to voice my opinion. There’s a reason.
I don’t think standardized tests test anything except how good one is at taking tests.
It’s an art form. It really is, and one slighted towards those left-brained individuals who make up the majority of the world. I’m not one of those people.
I would like to think that I’m Not Entirely Stupid; I made honor roll every semester in High School, and was even on the National Honor Society. I took the SAT’s twice, and even did the Pre-SAT’s.
I never scored over 900 total. I don’t even want to tell you how many scholarships and financial aid it cost me.
For some people, multiple choice is just another test. You pick the best answer, and go on your merry way. For others, it’s a nightmare. We agonize over wording and tenses. We agonize over the clock that’s counting down in the corner of our peripheral vision. We agonize because we can't visualize what we are suposed to be answering correctly. What happens when two choices are right? Who judges which one is “The Best”? And why don’t I get any credit for choosing the one that was at least second closest to being The Best?
What’s the worst that could happen by allowing me to write in my own best possible answer? Someone would have to go over my exam by hand. That means they would have to employ more test-graders, which means they would be creating more jobs. That’s good, right? I’d pay more to take each test if meant I’d be able to pass it the first time… I’d still end up paying less!
August 25, 2003
Why Sunday D&D is so much fun...
Posted by Jess in
Gaming
Goofing off and silliness with your closest friends. Does it get any better than this? (aside from the cheesecake, danish, potato chips, skittles and veggies & dip).
Setting: Dwarven town of Tulderoc Gap. Just settled into the local tavern Chippendwarfs after a hard day's exploration and battle in the local dungeon.
Melodie (Cindy), the party’s bard, casts a simple spell on the bowl of peanuts sitting nearby to make them chocolate covered. Thinking she’s onto something, she tries to make a quick buck by selling them to the soon-so-be sloshed tavern patrons.
The half-orc barbarian Muggle F’uggly (Bill) has had a bad dice-rolling day (whoops, I mean he’s just been rather clumsy) and decides he needs to redeem himself by drinking. LOTS of drinking. Deciding to engage in a drinking contest with a dwarf sitting nearby, a platinum coin (hey, we still got SOME spoils) flies across the bar and the keg starts flowing.
Thirteen beers later, a very inebriated Muggle and a sort-of inebriated dwarf are still going at it (Bill’s rolling has not improved). Artimus (Nate), the foolhardy cleric steps in to defend Muggle’s honor and prove he can hold his ale.
Let it be said at this time that Shaylee (April), the half-elf wizard is very responsibly doing research in the town library.
Not wanting to miss the action, Melodie joins up with her life-partner Maven (Jess), the party’s devious rogue to start a betting pool among the tavern. The ale continues to go down smoothly.
Artimus seems to be doing alright, his speech is only just starting to slur whilst his dwarf contender is having trouble seeing straight. Muggle, on the other hand, has just slid off his chair in a heap on the floor. Artimus is soon to follow, however, it is noted AFTER the dwarf. Melodie and Maven are quite happy, having placed their odds on Artie.
Melodie, quite upset at the lack of interest in her interpretive dance of the night’s events, decides her act needs a quick pick-me-up. Thinking quickly, she casts a spell to turn Muggle and Artimus red and green, respectively. Then she proceeds to levitate and spin them above her, while dancing and singing underneath them.
Muggle has had a lot of ale. Muggle should probably not be spinning right now. The flying upchuck manages to hit three dwarfs, who proceed to walk up to Melodie and dump their glasses of ale all over her.
Maven, who sees her life-partner get soaked screams, “no one goes after Melodie!” and proceeds to take the remnants of chocolate covered peanuts and start flinging them at the dwarfs.
The dwarfs grab Melodie. However, being ever-resourceful, she decides now would be a perfect time to cast Blink, a spell that makes her continuously disappear and reappear somewhere else in the close vicinity. While Muggle and Artimus have stopped spinning, they continue to levitate for several more minutes.
While the two men are floating, Melodie is popping in and out all over the room, and Maven is throwing peanuts, Shaylee walks in the door and shakes her head.
Finally, the men are pulled down and Shaylee puts them to bed. Melodie and Maven are kicked out of the tavern.
Who then proceed to turn invisible and levitate up to Shaylee’s room so she can let them back in.
There’s always a way, right? :-)
August 20, 2003
Dog Blog!
Posted by Reboot in
Day to Day
So my name is Reboot. Everyone says I’m “adoor-able”, but I don’t know what that means.
I’m smart, too. I’m the best one in my class. My mommy says it’s because of the shepp-ard in me, but I don’t know what that means either. I hope they get it out soon, because right now I don’t feel so good. Unless it’s because of all the dirt I ate.
DIRT!!!!
Sorry, I got distracted for a second. I LOVE dirt.
I also looooooooooooooooove car rides!
I HATE getting yelled at.
I’m sup-posed to be learning not to mega-bite. I mean, just the part without the ‘mega’. (You hear that word ALL the time at my house.) But I can’t help it, my teeth hurt.
My favorite trick now is to drop all my toys down the stairs and bark at them. I do it because I know it really annoys mommy. That, and when I get yelled at for chewing on something I’m not ‘sposed to, I look around, because, hey, all MY toys are gone! How’d that happen?
So anyways, I’m Reboot.
August 14, 2003
My first consulting job:
Posted by Jess in
Geek Humor
My first consulting job:
"See, you’re not leveraging your ability to use background agents. You’ve got 4k of memory, let’s not waste it."
Okay, so by today’s standards, this means nothing. Nowadays, two year olds can whup my ass at Half-Life and anything on Pogo.com. But this was 1978-79. As you can see, I was destined for geekdom.
Didn’t I tell you recently we’ve been having fun with old photographs? This is why it tops my list of things that make me happy.
Go look through your old photographs and see what you find. You’ll thank me.
Go!
What are you doing still reading this?
August 12, 2003
The Record Player
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
Between my friends, neighbors and family, lately there’s been a lot of talk about childhood memories, and old family photos emerging that have not seen the likes of daylight in, oh, say 25-40 years.
In talking with my neighbors, the subject of record players that we used to listen to when we were kids came up.
Something that I found absolutely fascinating:
Every single one of us used to think that the band was physically STUCK inside that record player somewhere, and that they played for us every time we dropped the needle to make the music come out. If we started the song again, the band HAD to play it again for us.
I can even remember the mental imagery I had when I was a kid… picturing the band somewhere in a big void, playing. Actually, my mental imagery looked a lot like the famous video of the Beatles playing on the Ed Sullivan show. I must have seen it somewhere and the image just stuck; I certainly wasn’t around for that!
Unfortunately, I was around just in time for Solid Gold. ;-)
August 06, 2003
New use for cameras?
Posted by Jess in
Geek Humor
So I'm sure we've all heard on the news how a little boy used his cell phone camera ability to foil a would-be abductor. The boy took pictures of the man, who were then able to identify him.
It seems like digital cameras aren't just for souveneirs anymore. It's neat, because we all like to learn new practical uses for everyday things (though I'm still waiting to see where integrals can help me).
Case in point:
Reboot had her next series of vaccines on Monday. Tuesday morning she woke up and wouldn't eat, and was extremely lethargic. I had to go to a client site all day, and Matt needed to go into his office for a few hours.
I was SO worried. I knew Matt had talked to the vet, but I was panicking because it seemed like she was having some sort of reaction. Shepherds are prone to all sorts of gastric problems, and it's how we lost our last shepherd.
However, I got an email from Matt later in the day, who knew how upset I was.
The contents of the email?
"Reboot is resting comfortably, and watching TV."
I felt better instantly.
